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22 May 2007, 08:56

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A

B

C

D

E

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1.Top college graduates are having more difficulty demonstrating their superiority to prospective employers than did the top students of twenty years ago when an honors degree was distinction enough. Today’s employers are less impressed with the honors degree. Twenty years ago no more than 10 percent of a given class graduated with honors. Today, however, because of grade inflation, the honors degree goes to more than 50 percent of a graduating class. Therefore, to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation.
Which one of the following is an assumption that, if true, would support the conclusion in the passage?
(A) Today’s students are not higher achievers than the students of twenty years ago.
(B) Awarding too many honors degrees causes colleges to inflate grades.
(C) Today’s employers rely on honors ranking in making their hiring decisions.
(D) It is not easy for students with low grades to obtain jobs.
(E) Colleges must make employers aware of the criteria used to determine who receives an honor degree.

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As i've stated before, these post are only useful if individuals will contribute some type of explanation with their posts, not just A.B.C, etc.

The way the question stem is; "Which one of the following is an assumption that, if true, would support the conclusion in the passage?"

I was leaning towards this being a justify the conclusion, but i'm fairly confident that this is an assumption question.

Want to concentrate on two things with this type of question:
(*) The correct answer to an assumption question is a statement the author must believe in order for the conclusion to make sense.

(*) Because the statement must be somthing the author believed when forming the argument, assumption answer choices cannot contain extranerous information.

Now, on to the possible answers:
D) "It is not easy for students with low grades to obtain jobs." You can cross this off your list immediately, as you see no mention of LOW GRADES in the passage.

E) "Colleges must make employers aware of the criteria used to determine who receives an honor degree". Again, this can be crossed off you list, as you see no mention what-so-ever about the "criteria" in the passage.

C) "Today’s employers rely on honors ranking in making their hiring decisions". Nope, cross this one off as well. I'll tell you why for two reasons.

(1) Directly in the passage you see "Today's employers are less impressed with the honors degree", which is exactly the reverse of our "possible" answer.
(2) Take the contrapositive of the possible answer choice and it's turned into "Today's employers DO NOT rely on honors ranking in making their hiring decision". By doing this you see that the argument is not weakened in any form.

Now we are left with A and B... hmmm, which it seems about half the responses are A while the other half are B.

I'm sorry but I feel that A is wrong:
(A)"Today’s students are not higher achievers than the students of twenty years ago."
-Unless I miss read the passage I see NO MENTION of higher achievers. Even further, taking the contrapositive you get: "Today's students ARE high achiever than the students of twent years ago". And besides, no mention of grade inflation in this possible answer.

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22 May 2007, 12:11

Very well explained by Euclid
but i think A is correct.

Conclusion is
to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation.now this means that 50% of student, though they have got distinction are not competent enough as the students who use to get distinction 20 years back.which is only possible if both the sets are not comparable.

B statement says
Awarding too many honors degrees causes colleges to inflate grades.
This statement is just out of scope.
It the inflation of grade which is causing the increase in degree awarded.
Not the other way round.

PS-Grade inflation(which i think)-suppose 20 years back A grade was awarded for 70-80% .Now A grade is awarded at 65-75%.
now the increase in grades is due to the students in the range 65-70%.

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06 Jun 2008, 07:07

Top college graduates are having more difficulty demonstrating their superiority to prospective employers than did the top students of twenty years ago when an honors degree was distinction enough. Todays employers are less impressed with the honors degree. Twenty years ago no more than 10 percent of a given class graduated with honors. Today, however, because of grade inflation, the honors degree goes to more than 50 percent of a graduating class. Therefore, to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation.

Which one of the following is an assumption that, if true, would support the conclusion in the passage?

(A) Todays students are not higher achievers than the students of twenty years ago.

(C) Todays employers rely on honors ranking in making their hiring decisions.

(D) It is not easy for students with low grades to obtain jobs.

(E) Colleges must make employers aware of the criteria used to determine who receives an honors degree.

Conclusion:Therefore, to restore confidence in the degrees they award, colleges must take steps to control grade inflation.

Reason for the conclusion or evidence - Top college graduates are having more difficulty demonstrating their superiority to prospective employers than did the top students of twenty years ago when an honors degree was distinction enough. Todays employers are less impressed with the honors degree.

Assumption : Employers look at honors when making hiring decision.

The above was my thought process when I picked C. Obviously that not the OA. Cna someone explain what the flaw in my reasoning?